Salazar handled the regime and the nation's stability by tightening his rule. He used police, censorship and suppression to counter disorder and opposition, especially that related to the communist movement. He supported Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War. Salazar kept Portugal neutral during World War II, effectively saving the country from probable devastation and allowing European refugees a sanctuary. His territorial policy envisaged continuing to develop Portugal as a unified nation-state of distinctive character in its imperial administration under the doctrines of Pluricontinentalism and lusotropicalism, with the Portuguese territories, including Angola and Mozambique, considered extensions of and on equal status with the Portuguese homeland, which served as their source of civilization. Salazar wanted Portugal to be relevant internationally. Through his government's policy, the country came to be welcomed and recognised in the international community, participating comprehensively in several organisations, such as the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO). Having a background in law, finance and economic policy, Salazar guided Portugal to variable economic growth, which was ultimately unprecedented, and increased literacy levels. The New State favoured Catholicism and Salazar advocated for it. He argued the role of the Church was social, not political, and enabled the Concordat of 1940.

Some historians prioritise Salazar's securing of the regime and the nation's stability. Nonetheless, taken separately, his character and work devoted to his country were widely well-regarded. Salazar was often described as a scholar who was humble, respectful, ascetic and incorruptible, yet intellectually brilliant. He was hardworking and judged by many commentators to have acted according to his lights.[2][3] He lived a life of simplicity, dying relatively poor after 40 years of public service in politics, but today, Salazar remains a controversial figure. His Estado Novo persisted under the direction of Marcelo Caetano, who had a major supportive role in the regime. It was then superseded by the Carnation Revolution and resulting turmoil.

Salazar was born in Vimieiro, near Santa Comba Dão (Viseu District), to a family of modest income.[4] His father, a small landowner, had started as an agricultural labourer and became the manager for a family of rural landowners of the region of Santa Comba Dão, the Perestrelos, who possessed lands and other assets scattered between Viseu and Coimbra.[5] He had four older sisters, and was the only male child of two fifth cousins, António de Oliveira (17 January 1839 – 28 September 1932) and wife Maria do Resgate Salazar (23 October 1845 – 17 November 1926).[4] His older sisters were Maria do Resgate Salazar de Oliveira, an elementary school teacher; Elisa Salazar de Oliveira; Maria Leopoldina Salazar de Oliveira; and Laura Salazar de Oliveira, who in 1887 married Abel Pais de Sousa, brother of Mário Pais de Sousa who served as Salazar's Interior Minister.

Salazar attended his small village's primary school and later went to Viseu’s. Aged 11, he won a free place at Viseu’s seminary, where he studied for eight years, from 1900 to 1908.[6] Salazar considered becoming a priest, but like many who entered the seminary very young, he decided, after receiving minor holy orders, not to proceed to the priesthood.[6] He went to Coimbra in 1910, during the first years of the Portuguese First Republic, to study law at the University of Coimbra.[7] During these student years in Coimbra, he developed a particular interest for finance, becoming a law graduate with distinction and specializing in finance and economic policy at the Law School. In 1914, he graduated with 19 points out of 20,[8] and in the meanwhile, became an assistant professor of economic policy at the Law School. In 1917, he became the regent of economic policy and finance by appointment of the professor José Alberto dos Reis. In the following year, Salazar was awarded his doctorate.[9][8]

Salazar was twenty-one years old when the First Portuguese Republic was instituted with the revolution of 5 October 1910 and the fall of the monarchy. The First Republic preceded the Estado Novo, spanning a complex 16-year period between 1910 and 1926.

The Republic has been described as "continual anarchy, government corruption, rioting and pillage, assassinations, arbitrary imprisonment and religious persecution".[1] It had eight Presidents, 44 cabinet reorganisations and 21 revolutions.[10][1] The first government of the Republic lasted less than 10 weeks and the longest-ruling lasted little over a year. Revolution in Portugal became a byword in Europe. The cost of living increased twenty-fivefold, while the currency fell to a 1⁄33 part of its gold value. Portugal's public finances and the economy in general entered a critical phase, having been under imminent threat of default since at least the 1890s.[11][12] The gaps between the rich and the poor continued to widen. The regime led Portugal to enter World War I in 1916, aggravating the perilous state of affairs in the country. Concurrently, the Catholic Church was hounded by the anti-clerical Freemasons of the Republic, and political assassination and terrorism became general. Between 1920 and 1925, according to official police figures, 325 bombs burst in the streets of Lisbon.[13] The British diplomat Sir George Rendell described the "political background as anything but deplorable... very different from the orderly, prosperous and well-managed country that it later became under the government of Senhor Salazar".[14] Salazar would keep in mind the political chaos of this time when he later ruled Portugal.

Portuguese soldiers embark to war in 1917.

In July 1940, LIFE magazine featured an article on Portugal, and, referring to its recent chaotic history, asserted that "anyone who saw Portugal 15 years ago might well have said it deserved to die. It was atrociously governed, bankrupt, squalid, ridden with disease and poverty. It was such a mess that the League of Nations coined a word to describe the absolute low in national welfare: "Portuguesé". Then the Army overthrew the Republic which had brought the country to this sorry pass". LIFE added that ruling Portugal was difficult and explained how Salazar "found a country in chaos and poverty" and then reformed it.[11][a]

The nation rose against such continual chaos with the bloodless 28 May 1926 coup d'état, reflecting widespread public dissatisfaction and general erosion of support for republican ideas. The revolution was widely popular among all civilian classes, with the Republic having no support.[15] At the time, the prevailing view in Portugal was that political parties were elements of division and parliamentarianism was in crisis. This led to general support, or at least tolerance, of an authoritarian regime.[16] The new Portuguese anti-parliamentarism was a reaction to previous experience with the system. Liberalism and Parliamentarism may have worked in Great Britain and the United States, but the Portuguese argued that liberalism was inappropriate in their nation and culture.[17]

As a young man, Salazar's involvement in politics stemmed from his Catholic views, which were aroused by the new anti-clerical Portuguese First Republic. He became a member of the non-politically affiliated Catholic movement Centro Académico de Democracia Cristã (Academic Centre for Christian Democracy).[18] Salazar rejected the monarchists because of the doctrines of Pope Leo. He was a frequent contributor to journals[b] concerned with social studies.[19] Local press described him as 'one of the most powerful minds of the new generation'.[8]

In 1921, Salazar was persuaded to stand as a candidate for election to parliament, though he did so reluctantly. He appeared once in the chamber and never returned, being struck by the disorder and futileness. Salazar was convinced that liberal individualism had led to fragmentation of society and a perversion of the democratic process.[20]

Military procession of General Gomes da Costa and his troops after the 28 May 1926 coup d'état.

After the 28 May 1926 coup d'état, Salazar briefly joined José Mendes Cabeçadas's government as Minister of Finance. On June 11, a small group of officers drove from Lisbon to Santa Comba Dão to persuade him to be Minister of Finance. Salazar spent five days in Lisbon. The conditions he proposed to control spending were refused, he quickly resigned, and in two hours he was on a train back to Coimbra University, explaining that because of the frequent disputes and general disorder in the government, he could not do his work properly.[21]

Several times between 1926 and 1928, Salazar turned down appointment to the finance ministry. He pleaded ill-health, devotion to his aged parents and a preference for the academic cloisters. He finally agreed to become the 81st Finance Minister on 26 April 1928, after the republican and Freemason Óscar Carmona was elected president. However, before accepting the position, he personally secured from Carmona a categorical assurance that as finance minister he would have a free hand to veto expenditure in all government departments, not just his own. Salazar was the financial czar virtually from the day he took office.

In July 1929, Salazar again presented his resignation. His friend Mario de Figueiredo, Minister of Justice, passed new legislation that facilitated the organisation of religious processions. The new law outraged the republicans, triggered a cabinet crisis, and Figueiredo threatened to resign. Salazar advised Figueiredo against resigning, but told his friend he would join him in his decision. Figueiredo resigned, and Salazar – at that time hospitalised due to a broken leg – followed suit on 3 July. Carmona went personally to the hospital on the 4th and asked Salazar to change his mind. Prime minister José Vicente de Freitas, disagreeing with Carmona's actions, left the cabinet. Salazar remained in the cabinet as Minister of Finance, but with additional powers.[22]

On July 5 1932, President Carmona appointed Salazar as the 101st Prime Minister. Like most effective politicians, Salazar began to operate close to the mainstream of political sentiment in his country.[23] The authoritarian government consisted of a right-wing coalition, and he was able to co-opt the moderates of each political current, while fighting the extremists using censorship and repression. Those perceived to be genuine fascists were jailed or exiled.[24] Conservative Catholics were Salazar's earliest and most loyal supporters, but conservative republicans who could not be co-opted became his most dangerous opponents during the early period. They attempted several coups, but never presented a united front, consequently these attempts were easily repressed. Never a true monarchist, Salazar nevertheless gained most of the monarchists' support, as Manuel II of Portugal the exiled deposed King always endorsed Salazar and later, in 1932, it was due to Salazar's actions that the deposed King was given a state funeral. The National Syndicalists were torn between supporting the regime and denouncing it as bourgeois. They were given enough symbolic concessions to win over the moderates, and the rest were repressed by the political police. They were to be silenced shortly after 1933, as Salazar attempted to prevent the rise of National Socialism in Portugal.

Salazar's rise to power was due to the public image he cultivated as an honest and effective Finance Minister, President Carmona's strong support, and shrewd political positioning. Within one year, armed with special powers, Salazar balanced the budget and stabilised Portugal's currency. Restoring order to the national accounts, enforcing austerity and red-penciling waste, Salazar produced the first of many budgetary surpluses, an unparalleled novelty in Portugal.[25]

A new constitution was drafted by a group of lawyers, businessmen, clerics and university professors, with Salazar being the leading spirit and Marcelo Caetano also having a major role.[26] The constitution created the Estado Novo, in theory a corporatist state representing interest groups rather than individuals. He wanted a system in which the people would be represented through corporations, rather than through divisive parties, and where national interest is given priority over sectional claims. Salazar thought that the party system had failed irrevocably in Portugal.[27] The legislature, called the National Assembly, was restricted to members of the UN, a single party. It could initiate legislation, but only concerning matters that did not require government expenditures.[28] The parallel Corporatist Chamber included representatives of municipalities, religious, cultural and professional groups and of the official workers' syndicates that replaced free trade unions.[28] The men who came to power in the Estado Novo were genuinely concerned with the poverty and backwardness of their nation, divorcing themselves from Anglo-American political influences while developing a new indigenous political model and alleviating the miserable living conditions of both rural and urban poor.[29]

The new constitution introduced by Salazar established an anti-parliamentarian and authoritarian government that would last four decades. The president was to be elected by popular vote for a seven years period. On paper, the new document vested sweeping, almost dictatorial powers in the hands of the president, including the power to appoint and dismiss the prime minister.[30] The president was elevated to a position of preeminence as the 'balance wheel', defender, and ultimate arbiter of national politics.[30] However, President Carmona had allowed Salazar more or less a free hand since appointing him prime minister and continued to do so; Carmona and his successors would largely be figureheads. In fact, Salazar’s position was one of power, not just because of the constitution, but also because of his character: domineering, absolutist, ambitious, hardworking and intellectually brilliant.[31]

Salazar's regime was rigidly authoritarian. He based his political philosophy around a close interpretation of the Catholic social doctrine, much like the contemporary regime of Engelbert Dollfuss in Austria.[32] The economic system, known as corporatism, was based on a similar interpretation of the papal encyclicals Rerum novarum (Leo XIII, 1891)[33] and Quadragesimo anno (Pius XI, 1931),[33] which were meant to prevent class struggle and transform economic concerns secondary to social values. Rerum novarum argued that, like the family, labor associations were part of the natural order. The rights of men to organise into trade unions and to engage in labor activities were thus inherent and could not be denied by employers or the state. Quadragesimo anno had provided the blue print for the erection of the corporatist system.[34]

Putative flag of the National Union, to which Salazar belonged.

The year 1933 marked a watershed in Portuguese history. Under Salazar’s supervision, Teotónio Pereira, the Sub-Secretary of State of Corporations and Social Welfare, reporting directly to Salazar, enacted extensive legislation that shaped the corporatist structure and initiated a comprehensive social welfare system.[35] This system was equally anti-capitalist and anti-socialist. The corporatisation of the working class was accompanied by strict legislation regulating business. Workers organisations were subordinated to state control but granted a legitimacy that they had never enjoyed and made beneficiaries of a variety of new social programs.[36] Nevertheless, it is important to note that even in the enthusiastic early years, corporatist agencies were not at the centre of power and therefore corporatism was not the true base of the whole system.[37]

In 1934, Salazar exiled Francisco Rolão Preto, purging the leadership of the Portuguese National Syndicalists, also called the camisas azuis ("Blue Shirts"). Salazar denounced the National Syndicalists as "inspired by certain foreign models" and their "exaltation of youth, and the cult of force through direct action, the principle of the superiority of state political power in social life, [and] the propensity for organising masses behind a single leader" as fundamental differences between fascism and the Catholic corporatism of the Estado Novo. Salazar's own party, the National Union, was formed as a subservient umbrella organisation to support the regime itself, and therefore did not have its own philosophy. At the time, many European countries feared the destructive potential of communism. Salazar not only forbade Marxist parties, but also revolutionary fascist-syndicalist parties. One overriding criticism of his regime is that stability was bought and maintained at the expense of suppression of human rights and liberties.[28]

The Estado Novo has been described by the American socialist author David L. Raby as a far-right leaning regime of para-fascist inspiration, although general labeling of Portugal as fascist declined after the defeat of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy in World War II.[38] The corporatist state had some similarities to Benito Mussolini’s Italian fascism, but considerable differences in its moral approach to governing.[39] Although Salazar admired Mussolini and was influenced by his carta del lavoro published in 1927,[26] he distanced himself and criticised fascist dictatorship as he considered it to be pagan Caesarism that tended towards a state that recognises neither legal nor moral limits. Salazar also considered there to be pagan elements in German Nazism, seeing these as repugnant. Later, before World War II, Salazar would come to declare: "We are opposed to all forms of Internationalism, Communism, Socialism, Syndicalism and everything that may divide or minimise, or break up the family. We are against class warfare, irreligion and disloyalty to one’s country; against serfdom, a materialistic conception of life, and might over right."[40]

The corporatist constitution was approved in a national plebiscite, on 19 March 1933.[30][41] A draft had been published one year before and the public was invited to state any objections in the press.[41] These tended to stay in the realm of generalities and only a handful of people, less than 6,000, voted against the new constitution.[41] With its passage, women were allowed to vote for the first time in Portugal and given a voice in the National Assembly.[42] Secondary education was a requirement for their suffrage, while men needed only to be able to read and write.

According to American scholar J. Wiarda, despite certain problems and continued poverty in many sectors, the consensus among historians and economists is that Salazar in the 1930s brought remarkable improvements in the economic sphere, public works, social services and governmental honesty, efficiency and stability.[43][44]

With the chaos of the First Republic in mind, stability could not be risked and Salazar responded by taking steps to secure his regime.

Salazar relied on secret police to enforce the policies he wished to implement. The Polícia de Vigilância e de Defesa do Estado (PVDE) ("State Defence and Surveillance Police") was established in 1933 and was modelled on the Gestapo. It was replaced in 1945 by the remodelled Polícia Internacional e de Defesa do Estado (PIDE) ("International and State Defence Police"), which lasted until 1969 (and from that year to 1974 under Marcelo Caetano, it was the Direcção Geral de Segurança (DGS) ("General Security Directorate"). The secret police existed not only to protect national security in a modern sense, but also to suppress the regime's political opponents, especially those associated with the international communist movement or the Soviet Union, which was seen by the regime as a menace to Portugal. The PIDE was efficient, and less overtly brutal than its predecessor and the foreign police forces it was modeled after.

The Spanish Civil War, which began in July 1936, was the ostensible reason for the radicalisation of the regime. Internally, the regime had to face a monarchist revolt in 1935, a threatened leftist coup in 1936 and several bombs and conspiracies in 1936 and 1937, including an attempt to assassinate Salazar in 1937. At the same time, Spanish Republican agents were active in Lisbon and Spanish troops were deployed on Portugal’s vulnerable border, severely threatening Portuguese sovereignty.[45]

In the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, Salazar took up additional portfolios as minister of war and minister of foreign affairs, while retaining direction of the Ministry of Finance, thus concentrating even more power in his hands.[45]

Salazar supported Francisco Franco and the Nationalists in their fight against the left-wing groups of the Spanish Republic. The Nationalists lacked access to seaports early on, so Salazar's Portugal helped them receive armaments shipments from abroad – including ordnance when certain Nationalist forces virtually ran out of ammunition. Consequently, the Nationalists called Lisbon "the port of Castile".[46] Later, Franco spoke in glowing terms of Salazar, in an interview in the Le Figaro newspaper: "The most complete statesman, the one most worthy of respect, that I have known is Salazar. I regard him as an extraordinary personality for his intelligence, his political sense and his humility. His only defect is probably his modesty."[47]

On 8 September 1936 a Naval Revolt took place in Lisbon. The crews of two naval Portuguese vessels, The NRP Afonso de Albuquerque and the Dão, mutinied. The sailors, who were affiliated with the Communist Party, confined their officers and attempted to sail the ships out of Lisbon and join the Spanish Republican forces fighting in Spain. Salazar ordered the ships to be destroyed by gunfire.[45][48] The following day loyalty oaths become mandatory for all of members of the civil service and censorship was severely tightened. Every government functionary was forced to declare that he repudiated communism. The anti-Communist crusade aimed to root out communism, but also democratic opposition.[45] The convicted sailors from the 1936 Naval Revolt were the first to be sent to the Tarrafal prison camp in Cape Verde. Salazar had established prison camps for opponents of the Estado Novo in the Cape Verde Islands, including the infamous Tarrafal, labeled the "slow death camp", where dozens of political prisoners (mostly communists but also adherents of other ideologies), were imprisoned under inhumane unhealthy conditions in exceedingly hot weather and died.[49]

In January 1938, Salazar appointed Pedro Teotónio Pereira as special liaison of the Portuguese government to Franco's government, where he achieved great prestige and influence.[50] In April 1938, Teotónio Pereira officially become a full-rank Portuguese ambassador to Spain, where he remained throughout World War II.[51]

Just a few days before the end of the Spanish Civil War, on 17 March 1939, Portugal and Spain signed the Treaty of Friendship and Non-Aggression (the Iberian Pact), marking the beginning of a new phase in Iberian relations, in which the meetings between Franco and Salazar played a fundamental part.[52] The pact proved to be a decisive instrument in keeping the Iberian Peninsula out of Hitler’s continental system.[53]

The radicalism of the regime drew opposition. Emídio Santana, founder of the Sindicato Nacional dos Metalúrgicos ("Metallurgists National Union") and an anarcho-syndicalist who was involved in clandestine activities against the dictatorship, attempted to assassinate Salazar on 4 July 1937. Salazar was on his way to Mass at a private chapel in a friend's house, in the Barbosa du Bocage Avenue in Lisbon. As he stepped out of his Buick limousine, a bomb hidden in an iron case exploded only 3 metres (10 ft) away. The blast left Salazar untouched, but his chauffeur was rendered deaf. A year later, the bishops of the country argued in a collective letter that it was an "act of God" that had preserved Salazar's life. The official car was replaced by an armoured Chrysler Imperial.[54] Sought by the PIDE, Emídio Santana fled to Britain, where he was arrested by British police and returned to Portugal. He was then sentenced to 16 years in prison.[55]

Despite the regime's use of censorship and suppression (enforced by the secret police), in July 1940, Life magazine spoke of Salazar and his Portugal with approbation, describing him as a "a benevolent ruler" and adding that "unambitious, Salazar took the dictatorship by Army request and holds it by popular will. (...) The Salazar dictatorship is easygoing and paternalistic, with wide freedom of speech allowed to its enemies. (...) Friends of democracy may deplore Salazar the dictator but they cannot deny that under the Republic Portugal made an unholy mess of itself and Salazar pulled it out."[11][a]

In October 1945, Salazar, hoping to improve the image of the regime in Western circles, announced a liberalisation program designed to restore civil rights that had been suppressed during the Spanish Civil War and World War II. The measures included parliamentary elections, a general political amnesty, restoration of freedom of the press, curtailment of legal repression and a commitment to introduce the right of habeas corpus. The regime started to organise itself around a broad coalition, the Movement of Democratic Unity (MUD), ranging from ultra-Catholics and fringe elements of the extreme right to the Portuguese Communist Party. Initially, the MUD was controlled by the moderate opposition, but it soon became strongly influenced by the Communist Party, which controlled its youth wing. In the leadership were several communists, among them Octávio Pato, Salgado Zenha, Mário Soares, Júlio Pomar and Mário Sacramento.[56] This influence led to the MUD being outlawed by the government in 1948, after several waves of suppression. Restrictions that had been temporarily lifted were then gradually reinstated.

The PIDE's bagde.

As the Cold War started, Salazar’s Estado Novo remained unmistakably authoritarian. Salazar had been able to hold onto power by virtue of the public's recollection of the chaos that had characterised Portuguese life before 1926. However, by the 1950s, a new generation emerged which had no collective memory of the previous state. The clearest sign of this came in the 1958 presidential election. Most neutral observers believed the democratic opposition's candidate, Humberto Delgado, would have defeated the regime's candidate, Américo Tomás, had the election been conducted fairly. Delgado, an emotional, quixotic, former government collaborator had stated that if elected, he would dismiss Salazar – the president's power to dismiss the prime minister was theoretically the only check on Salazar's power. Delgado was able to rally support from a wide range of the opposition. Among his supporters were some controversial figures, namely the press campaign manager Francisco Rolão Preto, a former Nazi sympathiser and former leader of the Blue Shirts, who had been exiled by Salazar in the 1930s.[57] An official announcement in 1958 stated that Delgado received one-fourth of the votes, in total approximately a million. The following year, 70-year-old Salazar, alarmed by the episode, changed the election of the President to a selection by the two parliamentary bodies, both under his control. Delgado was expelled from the Portuguese military, and took refuge in the Brazilian embassy before going into exile. Much of his banishment was spent in Brazil and later in Algeria, as a guest of Ben Bella. Later, in 1965, he was lured into an ambush by the PIDE (the regime's secret police) near the border town of Olivenza. Delgado and his Brazilian secretary Arajaryr Moreira de Campos were killed while trying to clandestinely enter Portugal. An official statement claimed that Delgado was shot and killed in self-defence, despite Delgado being unarmed and his secretary strangled.[58]

In the 1960s, Salazar's opposition to decolonisation and gradual freedom of the press created friction with the Franco dictatorship.

In 1968, Salazar suffered a brain hemorrhage when he fell in a bathtub.[59] As he became incapacitated, President Tomás, after hearing from various experts, appointed Marcelo Caetano in his place with some reluctance. Despite the injury, Salazar lived for another two years. When he unexpectedly recovered lucidity, his intimates did not tell him he had been removed from power, instead allowing him to "rule" in privacy until his death in July 1970.[60]

Salazar saw no prospects for his regime beyond his death.[61] Nonetheless, the Estado Novo persisted under the direction of Marcelo Caetano, Salazar's longtime aide as well as a well-reputed scholar of the University of Lisbon Law School, statesman and distinguished member of the regime who co-wrote the Constitution of 1933.

The Estado Novo would eventually fall on 25 April 1974 with the Carnation Revolution. The country would then experience a turbulent period of provisional governments and a nearly disintegrated state reminiscent of the First Republic, a condition that the Estado Novo had so assiduously attempted to avoid. These provisional governments also briefly censored newspapers and detained oppositionists.[61] Historian Kenneth Maxwell considers that, for many reasons, Portugal, in its transition from authoritarian rule to a more democratic government, resembled Nicaragua more than any other among the South American nations.[62] During the final months of Franco's dictatorship, which had survived to this point, Spain considered invading Portugal to check the perceived threat of communism caused by the Carnation Revolution.[63]

Salazar had lived during the hard times of World War I, in which Portugal participated, occurring in the chaotic period of the First Republic. World War II followed its course while he was in power. Salazar was widely praised for keeping Portugal neutral during the Second World War, effectively saving the country from probable devastation and allowing European refugees a sanctuary. From the war's very beginning in 1939, Salazar was convinced that Britain would suffer injury but remain undefeated, that the US would step in and that the Allies would win. The American journalist Henry J. Taylor commented: "I found not another continental European leader who then agreed with him".[64]

Salazar’s dislike of the Nazi regime in Germany and its imperial ambitions was tempered only by his view of the German Reich as a bastion against the spread of communism. He had favoured the Spanish nationalist cause, fearing a communist invasion of Portugal, yet he was uneasy at the prospect of a Spanish government bolstered by strong ties with the Axis.[65] Salazar's policy of neutrality for Portugal in World War II thus included a strategic component. The country still held overseas territories that, because of their poor economic development, could not adequately defend themselves from military attack. Siding with the Axis would have brought Portugal into conflict with Britain, likely resulting in the loss of its colonies, while siding with the Allies risked the security of the home country on the mainland. As the price to pay for remaining neutral, Portugal continued to export tungsten and other commodities to both the Axis (via Switzerland, partly) and the Allied countries.[66][67]

Upon the start of World War II in 1939, the Portuguese Government announced, on 1 September, that the 600-year-old Anglo-Portuguese Alliance remained intact, but that since the British did not seek Portuguese assistance, Portugal was free to remain neutral in the war and would do so. In an aide-mémoire of 5 September 1939, the British Government confirmed the understanding.

British strategists regarded Portuguese non-belligerency as "essential to keep Spain from entering the war on the side of the Axis".[68] Britain recognised Salazar's important role on 15 May 1940, when Douglas Veale, Registrar of the University of Oxford, informed Salazar that the University's Hebdomadal Council had "unanimously decided at its meeting last Monday, to invite you [Salazar] to accept the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Civil Law".[69][70] In July 1940, Life magazine covered Portugal in a feature article, praising Salazar's overall work and the direction he had given the country. However, commenting that "this year [of 1940], for [the] first time in centuries, Portugal is important to America. It is the funnel through which pour all the exchanges – of people and messages and diplomacy – between America and Europe. The war, by cutting the lines of intercourse to Northern Europe, has made Portugal what [one might say] geography intended – not a faraway corner of Europe but its front door."[11][a] In September 1940, Winston Churchill wrote to Salazar congratulating him for his policy of keeping Portugal out of the war, avowing that "as so often before during the many centuries of the Anglo-Portuguese alliance, British and Portuguese interests are identical on this vital question."[69]Sir Samuel Hoare, 1st Viscount Templewood, the British Ambassador in Madrid from 1940 to 1944, recognised Salazar's crucial role in keeping Iberia neutral during World War II, and lauded him for it. Hoare further added that "Salazar detested Hitler and all his works", as his corporative state was fundamentally different from the state as conceived by Nazism or Fascism, with Salazar never leaving a doubt of his desire for a Nazi defeat.[c] Historian Carlton Hayes, a pioneering specialist on the study of nationalism, was the American Ambassador in Spain during the war. He met Salazar in person and also praised him, expressing a similar opinion to Hoare's in his book Wartime Mission in Spain.[d] Hayes well appreciated Portugal's endeavours to form a truly neutral peninsular bloc with Spain, an immeasurable contribution – at a time when the British and the United States had much less influence – towards counteracting the propaganda and appeals of the Axis. Later in the book, Hayes wrote of Portugal's role in supporting the thousands of French military refugees who, in 1943, tried to get from Spain to North Africa in order to join the Allied forces there.[73] During the war, Salazar steered Portugal on a middle course, but nevertheless provided aid to the Allies. In November 1943, the British Ambassador in Lisbon, Sir Ronald Campbell, wrote, paraphrasing Salazar, that "strict neutrality was the price the allies paid for strategic benefits accruing from Portugal's neutrality and that if her neutrality instead of being strict had been more benevolent in our favour Spain would inevitably have thrown herself body and soul into the arms of Germany. If this had happened the Peninsula would have been occupied and then North Africa, with the result that the whole course of the war would have been altered to the advantage of the Axis."[74]

Royal Air Force Coastal Command in the Azores.

Campbell saw Salazar as fundamentally loyal to the Anglo-Portuguese Alliance and stated that "he [Salazar] would answer the call if it were made on grounds of dire necessity". When in August 1943 the British requested military base facilities in the Azores, invoking the alliance, Salazar responded favorably and quickly:[75] Portugal allowed these bases, letting the British use the Azorean ports of Horta (on the island of Faial) and Ponta Delgada (on the island of São Miguel), and the airfields of Lagens Field (on Terceira Island) and Santana Field (on São Miguel Island).[75] From November 1943, when the British gained use of the Azores, to June 1945, 8,689 U.S. aircraft departed from the Lajes base in the Azores, including 1,200 B-17 and B-24 bomber aircraft ferried across the Atlantic. Cargo aircraft carried vital personnel and equipment to North Africa, to the United Kingdom and – after the Allies gained a foothold in Western Europe – to Orly Field near Paris. Flights returning from Europe carried wounded servicemen. Medical personnel at Lajes handled approximately 30,000 air evacuations en route to the United States for medical care and rehabilitation. The Lajes Field in the Azores reduced flying time between the United States and North Africa from 70 hours to 40, a considerable reduction that enabled aircraft to make almost twice as many crossings, clearly demonstrating the geographic value of the Azores during the war. The British diplomat Sir George Rendell stated that the Portuguese Republican Government of Bernardino Machado was "far more difficult to deal with as an ally during the First War than the infinitely better Government of Salazar was as a neutral in the Second."[14]

The main reason for the neutrality of Portugal in World War II was strategic, and within the compass of the overall objectives of the Anglo-Portuguese Alliance. This modest but complex role allowed Portugal to rescue a large number of war refugees.[68]

Portugal's official nationalism was not grounded in race or biology. In 1934, Salazar made it clear that Portuguese nationalism did not include pagan anti-human ideals that glorified a single race. In 1937, he published a book called Como se Levanta um Estado ('How to Raise a State'), in which he criticised the philosophical ideals behind the Nuremberg laws.[76] Finally, in 1938, Salazar sent a telegram to the Portuguese Embassy in Berlin, ordering that it should be made clear to the German Reich that Portuguese law did not allow any distinction based on race, and that therefore, Portuguese Jewish citizens could not be discriminated against.[77] In the previous year, Adolfo Benarus, Honorary Chairman of COMASSIS[e] and a leader of the Lisbon’s Jewish Community, had published a book wherein he applauded the lack of anti-Semitism in Portugal.[78] In 2011, Avraham Milgram, Yad Vashem historian, said that modern anti-Semitism failed "to establish even a toehold in Portugal", while it grew virulently elsewhere in early 20th century Europe.[79]

At the beginning of the war, due to imminent attacks by Nazi Germany, Gibraltar’s civilian population was evacuated. At that time, Portuguese Madeira agreed to host about 2,500 Gibraltarian refugees, mostly women and children, who arrived at Funchal between July 21 and August 13, 1940, and remained there until the end of the war.[80]

Portugal, particularly Lisbon, was one of the last European exit points to the U.S.,[f] and a huge number of refugees found shelter in Portugal. The Portuguese consul general in Bordeaux, Aristides de Sousa Mendes, helped several. According to the testimony of one of Sousa Mendes’ sons, Salazar lost political trust in Sousa Mendes and stripped the diplomat of his title, subsequently ordering that no one in Portugal show him any charity.[81] However, Sousa Mendes never actually lost his title, as he was still listed annually in the Portuguese Diplomatic Yearbook until 1954[82] and, after a one-year punishment with half-pay, continued to receive an adequate salary, that was later even increased.[83][84] Sousa Mendes' actions were not unique. Issuing visas in contravention of instructions was widespread at Portuguese consulates all over Europe,[85] although some cases were supported by Salazar. The Portuguese Ambassador in Budapest, Carlos Sampaio Garrido helped an estimated 1,000 Hungarian Jews in 1944. Along with Carlos de Liz-Texeira Branquinho, they rented houses and apartments to shelter and protect refugees from deportation and murder. On 28 April 1944, the Hungarian Gestapo raided the Ambassador's home, arresting his guests. The Ambassador, who physically resisted the police, was also arrested, but managed to have his guests released on the grounds of extraterritoriality of diplomatic legations.[86] In 2010, Garrido was recognised as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem. Other Portuguese who deserve credit for saving Jews during the war are Professor Francisco Paula Leite Pinto and Moisés Bensabat Amzalak. A devoted Jew, and a supporter of Salazar, Amzalak headed the Lisbon Jewish community for 52 years, from 1926 until 1978.

Large numbers of political dissidents, including Abwehr personnel, sought refuge in Portugal after the plot of 20 July 1944. Until late 1942, immigration was very restricted. In cases where they suspected refugees would not simply pass through Portugal in transit to their destination but intended to remain in the country, the consulates would need to get a previous authorization from Lisbon. Such were the cases of foreigners of indefinite or contested nationality, the stateless, Russians or Jews expelled from their countries of origin.[87] These refugees, in transit through Lisbon on their way to the Americas, were allowed to use the country as an escape route.

The number of refugees who escaped through Portugal during the war has been estimated to range from a few hundred thousand to one million; impressive numbers considering the size of the country’s population of about 6 million at that time.[88] After the war, Portugal kept on welcoming and supporting refugees. Perhaps the most touching story is the one of 5,500 Austrian children, most of them orphans, that from 1947 to 1952, in an operation organised by Caritas Portugal, were transported by train from Vienna to Lisbon and then sent to the foster care of Portuguese families all over the country.[89]

During the last years of the monarchy and of the First Republic in Portugal, an attempt was made to obtain actual control over the claimed African possessions. One reason the government may have taken Portugal into World War I was the defence of the African empire, considered a part of the national identity.

Portuguese overseas territories in Africa during the Estado Novo (1933–1974): Angola and Mozambique were by far the largest territories.

Salazar briefly served as minister of colonies before assuming the premiership, and in that capacity he prepared the Colonial Act of 1930,[90] centralising the administration of the overseas territories in his own system and proclaiming the need to bring indigenous peoples into western civilization and the Portuguese nation. Assimilation was the main objective, except for the colonies of Cape Verde (seen as an extension of Portugal), India and Macau (seen as having their own forms of ‘civilisation’). As it had been before Salazar's tenure in the office, a clear legal distinction continued to be made between indigenous and the remaining other citizens – the latter being mostly Europeans, some Creole elites and a few black Africans. A special statute was given to native communities, accommodating their tribal traditions, while in theory establishing a framework that would allow natives to be gradually assimilated and brought into the fullness of Portuguese culture and citizenship. In 1961, with less than one per cent of the African population having been assimilated, the system was abolished and citizenship was granted to all Africans.[91]

Despite the fact that many authors credit Salazar for fostering the growth of a new, responsible, incorruptible and wholly committed generation of colonial servants, in 1947, Captain Henrique Galvão, a Portuguese parliamentarian, submitted a report disclosing the situation of forced labor and precarious health services in Portuguese colonies in Africa. The natives, it said, were simply regarded as beasts of burden. Galvão’s courageous report eventually led to his downfall and in 1952 he was arrested for subversive activities.[92] Although the Estatuto do Indigenato ('Indigenous Statute') set standards for indigenes to obtain Portuguese citizenship until it was abolished in 1961, the conditions of the native populations of the colonies were still harsh and they suffered inferior legal status under its policies.[93][94] Under the Colonial Act African Natives could be forced to work. By requiring all African men to pay a tax in Portuguese currency the government created a situation in which a large percentage of men in any given year could only earn the specie needed to pay the tax by going to work for a colonial employer. In practice this enabled settlers to use forced labor on a massive scale, frequently leading to horrific abuse.

Supporting a civilising mission colonial policy, Salazar adopted Gilberto Freyre's notion of Lusotropicalism, maintaining that since Portugal had been a multicultural, multiracial and pluricontinental nation since the 15th century, if the country were to be dismembered by losing its overseas territories, that would spell the end of Portuguese independence.[95] In geopolitical terms, no critical mass would then be available to guarantee self-sufficiency to the Portuguese State. Salazar had strongly resisted Freyre's ideas throughout the 1930s, partly because Freyre claimed the Portuguese were more prone than other European nations to miscegenation, and only adopted Lusotropicalism after sponsoring Freyre on a visit to Portugal and its colonies in 1951-2. Freyre's work "Aventura e Rotina" was a result of this trip.

Salazar, while refusing personally to be intimidated by the United States, wanted Portugal to be relevant internationally, and the country's overseas colonies made that possible. The colonies were in disarray after the war, but Salazar, a fierce integralist, was determined to retain control. The overseas provinces were a continual source of trouble, as well as of wealth for Portugal, especially during the Portuguese Colonial War. Portugal became increasingly isolated on the world stage as other European nations with African colonies gradually granted them independence. Salazar's reluctance to travel abroad, his increasing determination not to grant independence to the colonies and to stand against the "winds of change" announced by the British in their move to give up their major colonies, and his refusal to grasp the impossibility of his regime outliving him, marked the final years of his tenure. "Proudly alone" was the motto of his final decade. For the Portuguese ruling regime, the overseas empire was a matter of national identity.[96]

Portuguese soldiers on patrol in Angola.

In this particular case, with the exception of the Portuguese Communist Party, backed as it was by the Soviet Union, most of Salazar’s political opponents also favoured colonialist policies. Such was the case with João Lopes Soares (father of Mário Soares), who had been minister of colonies, and General Norton de Matos, the leader of the opposition supported by Mário Soares. Norton de Matos, who had been governor-general of Angola during the First Republic, published a book in 1953 titled África Nossa (Our Africa) wherein he defended colonialist policies far more aggressive than those of Salazar and supported the idea of massive territorial occupation by Portuguese white settlers.[97]

In the 1960s, armed revolutionary movements and scattered guerrilla activity had reached Mozambique, Angola, and Portuguese Guinea. Except in Portuguese Guinea, the Portuguese army and naval forces were able to effectively suppress most of these insurgencies through a well-planned counter-insurgency campaign using light infantry, militia, and special operations forces. Most of the world ostracised the Portuguese government because of its colonial policy, especially the newly independent African nations. Later, despite tentative overtures towards an opening of the regime, Marcelo Caetano balked at ending the colonial war, notwithstanding the condemnation of most of the international community.

The Carnation Revolution brought retreat from the colonies and acceptance of their independence, the subsequent power vacuum leading to the inception of newly independent communist states in 1975, notably the People's Republic of Angola and the People's Republic of Mozambique), which promptly began to expel all their white Portuguese citizens, [98][99] As a result, over a million Portuguese became destitute refugees — the retornados.

Goa was the first (1961) colony to be lost. A brief conflict drew a mixture of worldwide praise and condemnation. In India, the action was seen as a liberation of territory historically Indian by its geographical position, while Portugal viewed it as an aggression against its national soil and its own citizens.

After India gained independence on 15 August 1947, the British and the French vacated their colonial possessions in India. Subsequently, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru initiated proceedings to find a diplomatic solution to the Goa problem. The Portuguese had been in Goa for 451 years, since 1510, while independent India had only just been established. Nehru argued that the Goans were Indians by every standard and that Goa was a colony ruthlessly administered by a racist, fascist and colonial regime, "just a pimple on the face of India", in his famous phrase. Salazar maintained that despite Goa's location and Portugal's political system, it was a province of Portugal as integral to his nation as the Algarve. Salazar further asserted that: Goans nowhere considered or called themselves Indians but rather deemed themselves to be Portuguese of Goa; Goans were represented in the Portuguese legislature and some even served in the Portuguese cabinet; and finally, Goans had become ministers, provincial governors and ambassadors, and had risen to the highest levels of administration in Portuguese universities; thus they were de facto citizens of Portugal. The Goans had Portuguese citizenship with full rights, having access to all governmental posts, carrying out all functions and earning their living throughout the Portuguese territory. Salazar also insisted that to confer on the Indian Union the political representation of the geographic expression, "India", was to undermine the very basis of the independent existence of Pakistan, if not of Ceylon and Burma, for all of these states could then be held to be illegitimate encroachments on the territory of the Union.[100] Throughout the debate between Salazar and Nehru, Goans seem to have been apathetic regarding either position,[101] and there were no signs in Goa of discontentment with the Portuguese regime.[102] Reports from Times correspondents suggested that not only were the residents of Goa unexcited by the prospect of Indian sovereignty, but that even the diaspora was less energised than the Indian government was prone to suggest.[102]

Statements deploring India's resort to force in Goa, Daman, and Diu were made by governmental leaders and official spokesmen in many countries, including the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan, France, the Netherlands, Spain, and Western Germany. On the other hand, full support for the Indian action was expressed by the Soviet Union and all Soviet-bloc countries, Yugoslavia, the Arab States, Ghana, Ceylon, and Indonesia. Adlai Stevenson, the American Ambassador to the United Nations, stated "we are confronted by the shocking news that the Indian Minister of Defence Mr. Krishna Menon, so well known in these halls for his advice on peace and his tireless enjoinders to everyone else to seek the way of compromise, was on the borders of Goa inspecting his troops at the zero hour of invasion." Stevenson further accused India of violation of one of the most basic principles of the U.N. Charter, stated in Article 2. On the other hand Valerian Zorin, the Soviet Ambassador to the United Nations, maintained that the Goan question was wholly within India's domestic jurisdiction and could not be considered by the Security Council.[104]

Salazar was a close friend of RhodesianPrime MinisterIan Smith. After Rhodesia proclaimed its Unilateral Declaration of Independence from Britain, though not officially recognising the new Rhodesian state, Portugal supported it economically and militarily through neighbouring Portuguese Mozambique until 1975. That year the Mozambican Liberation Front took over following negotiations with the new Portuguese regime installed by the Carnation Revolution. Ian Smith later wrote in his biography, The Great Betrayal, that had Salazar lasted longer than he did, the Rhodesian government would have survived to the present day, ruled by a moderate black majority government under the name of Zimbabwe-Rhodesia.[96]

Salazar wanted Portugal to be relevant internationally. Eventually, with the apparent success of much of his governmental policy, the country was welcomed and recognised in the international community.

In the context of World War II, the British diplomat Sir George Rendell stated that the Portuguese Republican Government of Bernardino Machado was "far more difficult to deal with as an Ally during the First War than the infinitely better Government of Salazar was as a neutral in the Second",[14] hinting at Salazar's approach to international relations or general governing. Despite the authoritarian character of the regime, Portugal did not experience the same levels of international isolation as Spain following World War II. Under Salazar, Portugal, unlike Spain, was accepted into the Marshall Plan (1947-1948), for the aid it gave to the Allies during the final stages of the war. Further unlike Spain, it was one of the 12 founding members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) in 1949, reflecting Portugal's role as an ally against communism during the Cold War, despite being the only non democratic founder. Moreover, in 1950, Portugal joined the European Payments Union and participated in the founding of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) in 1960 and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in 1961. Portugal's membership and participation in the EFTA is regarded as highly satisfactory at virtually all levels. It joined the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade in 1962, and finally, not long after Salazar's death in 1970, Portugal signed a free trade agreement with the European Economic Community in 1972, still under the auspices of the Estado Novo.[105]

Salazar has traditionally been widely accused of negatively influencing the level of education and instruction in Portugal for ideological and political reasons. Although the militants of the First Republic chose education as one of their banner causes, the evidence shows that the more democratic First Republic was less successful than the authoritarian Estado Novo in expanding elementary education. Under the First Republic, literacy levels in children aged 7 to 14 registered a modest increase from 26 per cent in 1911 to 33 per cent in 1930. Under the Estado Novo, they increased to 56 per cent in 1940, 77 per cent in 1950 and 97 per cent in 1960.[106] In July 1940, Life magazine featured an article on Portugal, praising how the country had progressed since Salazar's tenure, among various aspects, claiming "schools are better since Salazar took over".[11][a]

Required elements of primary schools during the Estado Novo: a crucifix and portraits of Salazar and Américo Tomás.

The last two decades of the Estado Novo, from the 1960s to the 1974 Carnation Revolution, during Salazar's final years and Marcelo Caetano's administration that followed in late 1968, were marked by strong investment in secondary and university education, which experienced one of the fastest growth rates of Portuguese education in history.

After the politically unstable and financially chaotic years of the Portuguese First Republic, financial stability was Salazar's highest priority.[107] His first incursions into Portuguese politics, as a member of the cabinet, were during the Ditadura Nacional, when Portugal's public finances and the economy in general were in a critical state, with an imminent threat of default since at least the 1890s.[11][12] After Salazar became Prime Minister, he instituted numerous taxes to balance the Portuguese budget and pay external debts. Salazar's first years were marked by the Great Depression and the Second World War. The first era of his rule was thus an economic program based on the policies of autarky and interventionism, which were popular in the 1930s as a response to the Great Depression.[108] Under Salazar, the Portuguese budget went from insolvency to showing a substantial surplus every year from 1928. Portugal’s credit worthiness rose in foreign markets and the external floating debt was completely paid. Despite Salazar's best efforts, and despite a three per cent average growth between 1928 and 1938,[109] Portugal remained largely underdeveloped, its population relatively poor and with low education attainment when compared to the rest of Europe.

Salazar, aged 50, in 1939.

Portuguese right-leaning or conservative scholars like Jaime Nogueira Pinto[61] and Rui Ramos,[110] claim his early reforms and policies allowed political and financial stability and therefore social order and economic growth. In March 1935, Time Magazine asserted that "it is impossible to deny that the economic improvement recorded in Portugal since 1928 is not only without parallel anywhere else in the world, but is an achievement for which history can show but few precedents".[12] In July 1940, Life magazine featured an article on Salazar's tenure manifesting praise and referring how he had "balanced the budget", among other aspects.[11][a]

Historians like leftist politician Fernando Rosas, claim that Salazar's policies from the 1930s to the 1950s led to economic and social stagnation and rampant emigration, turning Portugal into one of the poorest countries in Europe, one that was also thwarted by scoring lower on literacy than its peers of the Northern Hemisphere. From the 1950s, the picture changed, recognising 'that industrial growth throughout the 1950s and 1960s was generally quite positive and, given Portugal's basic problems, could probably have only been improved slightly by a more creatively liberal regime'.[111] Throughout the 1950s, Salazar maintained the same import substitution approach to economic policy that had ensured Portugal's neutral status during World War II. From 1950 until Salazar's death, Portugal saw its GDP per capita increase at an annual average rate of 5.66 per cent. The rise of the new technocrats in the early 1960s, with a background in economics and technical-industrial know-how, led to a new period of economic fostering, with Portugal as an attractive country for international investment. Industrial development and economic growth would continue throughout the 1960s. During Salazar's tenure, Portugal participated in the founding of the European Free Trade Association in 1960 and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in 1961. This marked the initiation of Salazar's more outward-looking economic policy. Portugal's membership and participation in the EFTA is regarded as highly satisfactory at virtually all levels. Portuguese foreign trade increased by 52 per cent in exports and 40 per cent in imports. The economic growth and levels of capital formation from 1960 to 1973 were characterised by an unparalleled robust annual growth rates of GDP (6.9 per cent), industrial production (9 per cent), private consumption (6.5 per cent) and gross fixed capital formation (7.8 per cent).[112]

Despite the effects of an expensive war effort in African territories against guerrilla groups, Portuguese economic growth from 1960 to 1973 under the Estado Novo created an opportunity for real integration with the developed economies of Western Europe. In 1960, Portugal's per capita GDP was only 38 per cent of the European Community (EC-12) average; by the end of Salazar's period, in 1968, it had risen to 48 per cent; and in 1973, under the leadership of Marcelo Caetano, Portugal's per capita GDP had reached 56.4 per cent of the EC-12 average.[113]

The 40 years of variable financial stability and growth under the Estado Novo were followed by a declining economy and deteriorating finances in the aftermath of the Carnation Revolution that ended the regime in 1974 and the nationalization movement of 1975.

After a century and a half of Masonic domination, and sixteen years of atheistic and anti-Christian revolution, for forty years Portugal would be governed by a man that had been educated at a catholic seminar, had received minor orders, and had considered becoming a priest.[6]

Before accepting becoming minister of finance Salazar had been connected with several catholic movements and had developed a very close friendship with Manuel Gonçalves Cerejeira who in 1929 would become Cardinal-patriarchate of Lisbon. During their university years at Coimbra they shared a house, an old convent ("Os Grilos").[114]

In July 1929, with Salazar acting as minister of finance, the government, dominated by freemasons, revoked a law that that facilitated the organisation of religious processions, Salazar presented his written resignation to the Prime Minister saying: "Your Excellency knows that I never asked for anything that might improve the legal status of Catholics" carefully avoiding adding more problems to an already troubled nation but he could not accept the "violation of rights already conceded by law or by former government to Catholics or the Church in Portugal". [22]

Despite his identification with the Catholic lobby before coming to power and the fact that he based his political philosophy around a close interpretation of the Catholic social doctrine, he did nothing directly for religion in the initial phase of his rule. He wanted to avoid the divisionism of the First Republic and he knew that a significant part of the political elite was still anticlerical. Church and State remained apart. [115] No attempt was made to establish a theocratic policy. The Church’s lost property was never restored.[115]

In 1932 Salazar declared the Catholic political party (Centro Católico) to be unnecessary, as would be all political parties, now abolished in Portugal and "invited" its members to join the National Union. The role of the Church should be social and not political, he argued. As a reaction Cardinal-Patriarch Cerejeira founded Acção Católica in 1933, and continued to agitate for political power until 1934, when Pope Pius XI told Cerejeira that he should focus on social, not political, issues. In the 1933 Constitution, Article 45 provided for freedom of public and private worship for all religions, together with the right to establish Church organizations and associations in accordance with the norms of the law and order.[115]

Salazar based his political theory on the doctrines of the Popes and throughout the 1930s achieved great prestige in the Catholic world. In 1936 the episcopate expressed its full support for the regime in a Carta Pastoral, reaffirmed the following year by the head of the Portuguese Catholic Church. According to Life magazine in an article of 1940, he was "hailed by Rome as the perfect Catholic statesman".[11][a] Pope Pius XII said, "I bless him with all my heart, and I cherish the most ardent desire that he be able to complete successfully his work of national restoration, both spiritual and material".[116] And in 1938, Fordham University, a university founded by the Catholic Diocese of New York, granted Salazar the Honorary Doctorate of Law. Salazar wanted the reinstate the Church to her proper place but also wanted the Church to know her place and keep it. He made it clear when he declared "The State will abstain from dealing in politics with the Church and feels sure that the Church will refrain from any political action."[117][118]

In May 1940 a Concordat between the Portuguese state and the Vatican was signed.[119] There were difficulties in the negotiations which preceded the signing of the Concordat, demonstrating both how eager the Church remained to re-establish its influence, and how equally determined Salazar was to prevent any religious intervention within the political sphere, the exclusive preserve of the State. The legislation of the parliamentary republic was not fundamentally altered: religious teaching in schools remained voluntary, while civil marriages and civil divorce were retained and religious oaths were not reestablished. The Bishops were to be appointed by the Holy See but final nomination required the government’s approval. The clergy were subject to military service but in the form of pastoral care to the armed forces and, in time of war, also to the medical units. [117] The Church could establish and maintain private schools, but they would be subject to state supervision. The Catholic religion and morality were to be taught in public schools unless parents had requested the contrary. [117] However, Catholics who celebrated canonical marriages were not allowed to obtain a civil divorce. The law said that "It is understood that by the very fact of the celebration of a canonical marriage, the spouses renounce the legal right to ask for a divorce." Despite this prohibition, by 1960 nearly 91 percent of all marriages in the country were canonical marriages.[120][g]

Pinto and Rezola argue that a key strategy Salazar used to stabilise his regime, was to come to terms with the Catholic Church through the concordat. Anti-clericalism would be discouraged and the Church would have an honored and central position in Portuguese life. The Church agreed to stay out of politics, but it did operate numerous social groups for adults and youth. The Church role became a major pillar of the New State’s "limited pluralism."[121][122]

The entrance profile of the Monument to the Discoveries in Lisbon, displaying the sword of Avis on a stylised cross, symbolising the growth of the empire and faith.

Despite this landmark agreement, Church-state relations and inter-Church relations in Portugal were not without some tensions through the 1940s. Some prominent oppositionist priests, like Abel Varzim and Joaquim Alves Correia, openly supported the MUD in 1945 and the granting of more social rights to the workers. Abel Varzim, who had been a supporter of the regime, attacked Salazar and his claims of the Catholicism of the corporatist state, arguing that the regime was not true to Catholic social teaching as the people suffered in poverty. Varzim's newspaper, O Trabalhador (The Worker), was closed in 1948.[123] In his personal diary he wrote: "o estado-salazar é quem manda na igreja" ("In Portugal the Salazar-State rules the church"). Joaquim Alves Correia was forced into exile in the United States, where he died in 1951. The opposition candidate in the 1958 presidential election, Humberto Delgado, a Roman Catholic and a dissident of the regime, quoted Pope Pius XII to show how the social policies of the regime were against the social teachings of the Church. That same year, in July 1958, Salazar suffered a severe blow from the bishop of Porto, Dom António Ferreira Gomes, who wrote a critical letter to the Council President criticizing the restrictions on human rights and denouncing the harshness of Portugal's poverty. It was time, he said, for the Church to come out of the catacombs and speak her mind.[118] Salazar was furious. The Bishop was not formerly exiled, but he decided to leave the country and it appears that Lisbon made it clear to Rome that the Bishop's presence in Portugal would not be appropriate.[118]

After the Second Vatican Council, a large number of Catholics became active in the democratic opposition.[124] The outbreak of the colonial wars in Angola, Guinea and Mozambique – in March 1961, January 1963 and September 1964 respectively – exacerbated the divisions within the Catholic sector along progressive and traditionalist lines. The Pope's decision to travel to Bombay in December 1964 to take part in the Eucharistic Congress represented for the Portuguese head of government – who saw in India little more than the illegal occupier of Goa since December 1961 – no less than a direct affront to the nation as a whole. On 21 October 1964, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Franco Nogueira, officially defined the visit as an agravo gratuito.

Directly linked with the Pope’s visit to India, a second event of significant importance preceded the Pope’s visit to Portugal: the attribution of the Rosa de Ouro to the Fátima sanctuary on 13 May 1965. Paul VI officially announced his intention to take part in the Fiftieth Anniversary celebrations of the first reported Fátima apparition – also the twenty-fifth of the consecration of the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary by Pius XII – during his General Audience of 3 May 1967. From the very start, he made every effort to remove any political significance from his visit. It was effectively limited to a single day in Fatima, not Lisbon, and the Pope made use of Monte Real airbase instead of Lisbon airport, which would have given a far more official nature to the pilgrimage.

Religions other than the Catholic faith had little or no expression in Portugal. Throughout the period of Salazar's Estado Novo there was no question of discrimination against the Jewish and Protestant minorities, and the ecumenical movement flourished.[124]

The Portuguese literary historian, António José Saraiva, a communist and a fierce lifelong political opponent of Salazar, claimed that one who reads Salazar's Speeches and Notes is overwhelmed by the clarity and conciseness of style, the most perfect and captivating doctrinal prose that exists in Portuguese, underscored by a powerful emotional rhythm. According to this scholar, Salazar's prose deserves a prominent place in the history of Portuguese literature, and only political barriers have deprived it of the place. Saraiva says it is written with the clarity of the great prose of the 17th century, cleansed of all the distractions and sloppiness that often obscures the prose of the Portuguese scholars.[125][126][127]

Salazar was widely well-regarded outside Portugal during his lifetime, and many commentators described his character, work ethic and devotion to his country with approval. There was no lack of critical commentary, however, and not a few considered him of less than sterling character, even while acknowledging his hard-working dedication to his beliefs.

Salazar (centre, with glasses) observing Edgar Cardoso's maquette of the Santa Clara bridge. Located in Coimbra, it was concluded in 1954.

Francisco Franco spoke effusively of Salazar in an interview published by the Le Figaro newspaper: "The most complete statesman, the one most worthy of respect, that I have known is Salazar. I regard him as an extraordinary personality for his intelligence, his political sense and his humility. His only defect is probably his modesty."[47] This was, however, in response to Salazar helping his cause, which, in turn, was meant to prevent Portugal from communism and the chaos of the First Republic.

The Portuguese historian, scholar, and editor, A. H. de Oliveira Marques,[129][130] wrote of Salazar: "He considered himself the guide of the nation, believed that there were things which only he could do ('unfortunately there are a lot of things that seemingly only I can do' — official note published in September 1935) and convinced more and more of his countrymen of that too... He became more and more of a dictator, more and more inclined to deify himself and to trust others less."[131]

In July 1940, Life magazine called Salazar "a benevolent ruler", described him as "by far the world's best dictator, he [Salazar] is also the greatest Portuguese since Prince Henry the Navigator", and added that "the dictator has built the nation". Life declared that "most of what is good in modern Portugal can be credited to Dr. Antonio de Oliveira Salazar (...) The dictator is everything that most Portuguese are not – calm, silent, ascetic, Puritanical, a glutton for work, cool to women. He found a country in chaos and poverty. He has balanced the budget, built roads and schools, torn down slums, cut the death rate and enormously raised Portuguese self-esteem."[11][a]

In November 1965, Time magazine said of Salazar: "Every four years, Premier Antonio de Oliveira Salazar preserves Portugal's image as a democracy by blowing the dust off a few selected "opposition" leaders and relaxing police controls just enough for a few weeks to permit them to run for Portugal's 130-seat National Assembly. There are a few cracks in the facade. The assembly functions only as a rubber stamp. The opposition candidates are usually feeble old men left over from a regime that was discredited and overthrown four decades ago, and Salazar decides what they can and cannot talk about..."[132]

Sir Samuel Hoare, 1st Viscount Templewood, the British Ambassador in Madrid from 1940 to 1944, recognised Salazar's crucial role in keeping Iberia neutral during World War II, and lauded him. Hoare asserted that, in his 30 years of political life, he had met most of the leading statesmen of Europe, and regarded Salazar highly among those. Salazar was to him a learned and impressive thinker – part professor, part priest, part recluse of unshakable beliefs. He regarded him as ascetic, concentrated on serving his country, with an encyclopedic knowledge of Europe and indifferent to ostentation, luxury or personal gains. Hoare strongly believed in Salazar as "being a man of one idea – the good of his country", not wanting to endanger the work of national regeneration to which he had devoted the whole of his public life.[71]

The Portuguese poet, writer, and literary critic Fernando Pessoa wrote that Salazar was ..."apto, posso admitir, para governar nos limites da sua especialidade, que e a sciencia financeira, mas não na falta de limites da generalidade do governo" [..."capable of governing within the limits of his area of expertise, which is financial science, but not (capable of governing) with the lack of limits of government in general"], adding that "O mal, aqui, não e que o Sr. Oliveira Salazar seja ministro das finanças, para o que concedo esteja certo, mas ministro de tudo, o que e mais duvidoso" ["What is wrong, here, is not that Sr. Oliveira Salazar is Minister of Finance, which I accept is right, but that he is minister of everything, which is more questionable."][133]

Historian Carlton Hayes, a pioneering specialist on the study of nationalism, was the American Ambassador in Spain during World War II. He met Salazar in person and shared a similar opinion in his book Wartime Mission in Spain. Hayes wrote that Salazar 'didn't look like a regular dictator. Rather, he appeared a modest, quiet, and highly intelligent gentleman and scholar (…) literally dragged from a professorial chair of political economy in the venerable University of Coimbra a dozen years previously in order to straighten out Portugal's finances, and that his almost miraculous success in this respect had led to the thrusting upon him of other major functions, including those of Foreign Minister and constitution-maker.'[72][73]

The British academic Tom Gallagher, professor of politics and historian, was not so charitable. He wrote in 1983: "Salazar was being deceitful when he told António Ferro in 1938, 'I estimate that within five years every child in this country will have the opportunity to read and write.' His true policy had been revealed six years earlier when he stated categorically, 'I consider more urgent the creation of elites than the necessity to teach people how to read'."[134]

The Portuguese literary historian, António José Saraiva, a communist and a fierce lifelong political opponent of Salazar, claimed that "Salazar was, undoubtedly, one of the most remarkable men in the history of Portugal and possessed a quality that remarkable men not always have: the right intention."[135]

Historian Neill Lochery claims Salazar was one of the most gifted men of his generation and hugely dedicated to his job and country.[136]

The American author and political scientist, Paul H. Lewis, wrote of Salazar: "Though he never took Holy Orders he continued to live the solitary, ascetic life of a priest – never marrying, and devoting all his time, first to his academic career as an economist at Coimbra University, and later to running the government. He was cold, intellectual, and dedicated – a man of "painful reserve: an almost Manichean fastidiousness, implying, perhaps a distaste for sex, and always a total involvement with his job."[137]

In 2006 and 2007 two public opinion television shows aroused controversy. Salazar was elected the "Greatest Portuguese Ever" with 41 per cent of votes on the show Os Grandes Portugueses ("The Greatest Portuguese") from the RTP1 channel.[138][139] He was presented by the scholar Jaime Nogueira Pinto, who described being confronted with some "reactions of perplexity, surprise, aggressiveness and even hostility" after having accepted the task.[61] Salazar was also declared "Worst Portuguese Ever" in a public poll by the satirical debate program Eixo do Mal ("Axis of Evil") on the channel SIC Notícias. However, the official poll results for both of the two rounds hosted by this latter program show that the public had actually voted Mário Soares, a major opponent of Salazar and his regime, as "Worst Portuguese Ever".[140][141][142] This led to viewers expressing concerns about the reliability and seriousness of the show, with the controversy extending to the poll on the show The Greatest Portuguese, which Mário Soares called "total nonsense from start to end".[143] Years previously, a survey from the channel SIC had also revealed Salazar as the 'The Greatest Portuguese Figure of the 20th Century'.

He also received several other similar distinctions from countries including France, Germany, Belgium, Poland, Romania and Spain.[147][148]

The bridge across the Tagus connecting Lisbon to Almada was named Bridge Salazar upon completion. Built by the Estado Novo 6 months ahead of schedule and under budget, it was the 5th longest suspension bridge in the world and the longest outside of USA. It was then renamed '25th of April Bridge'. Stadium Salazar, a noteworthy multi-purpose stadium built in Mozambique during the Estado Novo, was named after Salazar. With 1975's new government it began to degrade. It was renamed Stadium of Machava.[149] Many places across the country (streets, avenues, squares) were named after Salazar. They were renamed since 1974, specially in district capitals. Around 20 localities still reference Salazar today.[150] There are also some azulejos with quotes of Salazar.

In popular culture, Salazar's Cake (Bolo de Salazar) is the name given to a cake that Salazar used to eat sometimes. It is cheap and simple, perhaps with similarities to sponge cake.

A wine brand called Terras de Salazar ("Lands of Salazar") was approved in 2011 by the national institute. It never reached the market due to the owner's economic troubles.[151] In 2012, the City Council of Salazar's hometown Santa Comba Dão announced a brand called Memories of Salazar for a range of regional products, notably wine. It was rejected by the same institute for offensiveness and the possibility of public disorder. The Mayor claimed the refusal was ridiculous and will not give up or drop the name Salazar from future brand name proposals. He is considering submitting Vineyards of Salazar, as "memories" of the regime could be one reason to add to the refusal.[152]

In 1968, Salazar suffered a brain hemorrhage. Most sources maintain that it occurred when he fell from a chair in his summer house. In February 2009 though, there were anonymous witnesses who admitted, after some investigation into Salazar's best-kept secrets, that he had fallen in a bath instead of from a chair.[153] As he was expected to die shortly after his fall, President Américo Tomás replaced him with Marcello Caetano. Despite the injury, Salazar lived for a further two years. When he unexpectedly recovered lucidity, his intimates did not tell him he had been removed from power, instead allowing him to 'rule' in privacy until his death in July 1970.[154] Tens of thousands paid their last respects at the funeral and the Requiem Mass that took place at the Jerónimos Monastery and at the passage of the special train that carried the coffin to his hometown of Vimieiro near Santa Comba Dão, where he was buried according to his wishes in his native soil, in a plain ordinary grave. As a symbolic display of his views of Portugal and the colonial empire, there is well-known footage of several members of the Mocidade Portuguesa, of both African and European ethnicity, paying homage at his funeral.

^Hoare asserted that, in his 30 years of political life, he had met most of the leading statesmen of Europe, and regarded Salazar very highly among those. Salazar was to him a learned and impressive thinker, part professor, part priest, part recluse of unshakable beliefs in the principles of European civilization. He regarded him as ascetic, concentrated on serving his country, with an encyclopedic knowledge of Europe and indifferent to ostentation, luxury or personal gains. Hoare strongly believed in Salazar as 'being a man of one idea – the good of his country' not wanting to endanger the work of national regeneration to which he had devoted the whole of his public life.'[71]

^Hayes wrote of Salazar, claiming he 'didn't look like a regular dictator. Rather, he appeared a modest, quiet, and highly intelligent gentleman and scholar (…) literally dragged from a professorial chair of political economy in the venerable University of Coimbra a dozen years previously in order to straighten out Portugal's finances, and that his almost miraculous success in this respect had led to the thrusting upon him of other major functions, including those of Foreign Minister and constitution-maker.'[72][73]

^Portuguese Committee for the Assistance of Jewish Refugees in Portugal (COMASSIS), which was led by Augusto d´Esaguy and Elias Baruel, having Moses Amzalak and Adolfo Benarus as its honorary chairmen.

^In the film Casablanca, Ingrid Bergman and her husband headed to Lisbon in one of the most memorable movie scenes. Star-crossed Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman part as he sends her off into the foggy night to join her husband on a flight from Casablanca. Bogart (Rick) sacrifices the life they might have had together to ensure her safety.

^Salazar’s concordat outlived him and outlived the Estado Novo for 30 more years. Salazar’s concordat lasted until 2004 when a new one was signed by Prime Minister José Manuel Barroso. Salazar’s text was slightly amended in 1975 in order to allow civil divorce in catholic marriages while keeping all the other articles in force. (Additional Protocol to the 1940 Concordat, Decreto n.º 187/75, Signed by President Francisco da Costa Gomes)

^Áurea Adão and José Remédios, "The educational narrativity in the first period of Oliveira Salazar’s government. Women’s voices in the National Assembly (1935–1945)," History of Education (2005) 34#5 pp 547-559.

^Several secondary and primary published sources mention that Mendes was receiving a salary. Secondary: Afonso p.257, Lochery p. 49, Wheeler p.128, and Primary: a) Sousa Mendes Personal File, online archive, Portuguese Ministry of Finance b) A letter that Sousa Mendes wrote to the Portuguese Bar Association, Ordem dos Advogados - Secretaria do Conselho Geral, Lisboa, Cota - Processo nº 10/1931 Date 1946.04.29 in which he says that he is receiving a monthly salary of 1,593 Portuguese Escudos. Fralon also mentions that in 1950 Mendes wrote to his twin saying the following 'Pedro Nuno [his son], Maria Adelaide [his daughter in law] and their children [his grand-children] are in financial straits. My salary has been used up to pay for their outings' p. 133.

Ribeiro De Meneses, Filipe. Slander, Ideological Differences, or Academic Debate? The "Verão Quente" of 2012 and the State of Portuguese Historiography, E-Journal of Portuguese History (2012), 10#1 pp 62-77. Online.